THE SPECTACLE is almost bizarre: a political party refuses to accept new members. And not just a few individuals, but tens of thousands. And not just any party, but the Likud ("Unification"), the main force in Israel's governing coalition.
Strange? But there is method in this madness. It may soon come before Israel's highest court.
The present leaders of the party, Binyamin Netanyahu and his fellows, are afraid that the people who are now seeking to register as Likud members are really settlers in the occupied territories, who want to take over the Likud, while in practice remaining loyal to their own parties, which are even more extremist.

A FEW days ago I found myself in Caesarea, sitting in a restaurant and looking out over the sea. The sunbeams were dancing on the little waves, the mysterious ruins of the ancient town arrayed behind me . It was hot, but not too hot, and I was thinking about the crusaders.
Caesarea was built by King Herod some 2000 years ago and named after his Roman master, Augustus Caesar. It once again became an important town under the Crusaders, who fortified it. These fortifications are what now makes the place a tourist attraction.
For some years in my life I was obsessed with the Crusaders. It started during the 1948 "War of Independence", when I chanced to read a book about the crusaders and found that they had occupied the same locations opposite the Gaza strip which my battalion was occupying. It took the crusaders several decades to conquer the strip, which at the time extended to Ashkelon. Today it is still there in Muslim hands

If by a miracle I could be returned to, say, 14, and travel all this long way again, would I like that? No, I would not.

Enough is enough.
IN THESE 93 years, the world has changed completely.
A few days after my birth in Germany, a ridiculous little demagogue called Adolf Hitler attempted a putsch in Munich. He was put in prison, where he wrote a tedious book called Mein Kampf. Nobody took any notice

Happy birthday tomorrow Mr. Dibbler. This is a good chance to appreciate and thank you for your continuously thoughtful and positive contribution to this board over the last 14 years and three months. Hope you have a great day.

MY OPTIMISM about the future of Israel irritates a lot of people. How can I be an optimist in view of what's happening here every day? The practical annexation of occupied territories? The mistreatment of the Arabs? The implantation of poisonous settlements?
But optimism is a state of mind. It does not falter in the face of evil. On the contrary, evil must be fought. And you cannot fight if you do not believe that you can win.
Some of my friends believe that the fight is already lost. That Israel can no longer be changed "from within". That the only way to change it is by pressure from outside.
Fortunately, they believe, there is an outside force, that is ready and able to do our job for us

I OWE many thanks to Bezalel Smotrich. Yes, yes, to Smotrich of the extreme right, Smotrich the fascist.
Recently Smotrich gave a speech to his followers, which he intended to be a national event, the turning of a page in Jewish history. He was gracious enough to mention me in this monumental message.
He said that after the 1948 war, in which the State of Israel was founded, Uri Avnery and a small band of followers created the ideology of "two states for two peoples", and by patient work over many years succeeded in turning this idea into a national consensus, indeed into an axiom. Smotrich told his devotees that they, too, had to formulate their ideology, work patiently for many years until it became the national consensus instead of Avnery's.

THIS IS the story: at 7 o'clock in the morning, an Arab approaches the gate of Har Adar, a settlement close to the Green Line near the Israeli-Arab village of Abu Ghosh.
The man is a "good Arab". A good Arab with a work permit in the settlement. He lives in the nearby West Bank Arab village of Beit Surik. He received a work permit there because he fits all the criteria – he is 37 years old, married and father of four children. The inhabitants of Har Adar know him well, because he has been cleaning their homes for years.
This Tuesday morning he arrived at the gate as usual. But something aroused suspicion among the guards. He was wearing a jacket, though the weather was quite hot on this early autumn day. The guards asked him to remove his jacket.

JUST IMAGINE: A new movement among the Mizrahim is born in Israel.
It declares that all the existing organizations of Mizrahim (Oriental Jews) are phony. That they are all instruments of the Ashkenazi (European Jewish) elite to keep the Mizrahim in subjugation. That the Oriental Shas party is a joke, especially since the death of Rabbi Ovadia Josef, who was an authentic Mizrahi leader.
It says the Likud is the most cunning instrument for keeping the Mizrahim down. That the endless rule of Binyamin Netanyahu, the very personification of the Ashkenazi elite, symbolizes the powerlessness of the ignorant Mizrahi masses, who keep him and his entire Ashkenazi gang in power.

Ze'ev Begin, the son of Menachem Begin, is a very nice human being. It is impossible not to like him. He is well brought up, polite and modest, the kind of person one would like to have as a friend.

Unfortunately, his political views are far less likeable. They are much more extreme than even the acts of his father. The father, after leading the Irgun, sat down and made peace with Anwar al-Sadat of Egypt. Ze'ev is closer to Golda Me'ir, who ignored Sadat's peace overtures and led us into the disastrous Yom Kippur war.

ONE DAY the Israeli Labor Party felt that it needed a new leader.
That happens to this party every couple of years. The party is in bad shape. It looks more like a political corpse than a living organism. Wanted: a new leader, charismatic, energetic, enthusiastic.
So they found Avi Gabbay.
Why him? Nobody is really sure.
Avi Gabbay has no visible qualities of political leadership. No charisma at all. No special energy. No enthusiasm himself and no ability to inspire enthusiasm in others.

HALLELUJAH! AT long last I have found a point on which I agree with Binyamin Netanyahu. Really!
This Monday the Knesset reassembled for its winter session after a long (and blessed) vacation. On such occasions, the president of the state and the prime minister are invited to speak. The speeches are supposed to be festive, full of pious platitudes. In one ear and out the other.
Not this time.

I HATE self-evident truths.
Ideals may be self-evident. Political statements are not. When I hear about a self-evident political truth, I immediately doubt it.
The most self-evident political truth at this moment concerns Iran. Iran is our deadly enemy. Iran wants to destroy us. We must destroy its capabilities first.
Since this is self-evident, the anti-nuclear agreement signed between Iran and the five Security Council members (plus Germany) is terrible. Just terrible. We should have ordered the Americans long ago to bomb Iran to smithereens. In the unlikely event that they would have disobeyed us, we should have nuclear-bombed Iran ourselves, before their crazy fanatical leaders have the opportunity to annihilate us first.

DURING THE last few days, I met with two old friends: Yasser Arafat and Yitzhak Rabin.
Well, the term "friends" may not quite be appropriate. Certainly, Arafat called me "my friend" in a recorded message for my 70th birthday, but Rabin called nobody "friend". That was not his character.
I am glad that I knew both from close up. Without them, my life would have been poorer.
I DON'T think I ever met two more different people than these two.
Arafat was a warm person. An emotional person. His embraces and kisses were ceremonial, but they also expressed real sentiment. I brought many Israelis to meetings with him, and they all recounted that after ten minutes in his company they felt as if they had known him for years.

I am furious. And I have good reason to be furious.
I was going to write an article about a subject I have been thinking about for a long time.
This week I opened the New York Times and lo, my yet unwritten article appeared on its opinion pages in full, argument after argument.
How come? I have only one explanation: the author – I have forgotten the name – has stolen the ideas from my head by some magical means, which surely must be branded as criminal. A person once tried to kill me for doing the same thing to him.
So I have decided to write this article in spite of everything.
THE SUBJECT is idiocy. Particularly, the role of idiocy in history.